Based on the true story of a 17th-century nun, who both claimed to be able to perform miracles and quietly pursued a lesbian affair in her convent, the Dutch-born director's newest drama will have viewers blushing into their popcorn.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 18, 2024

What’s most intriguing in the film is its sycophantic religious politics — not the romance. The politicking and faux puritanism are executed cogently, often more riveting than its other parts.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 18, 2023

With a classic style that's almost baroque, Paul Verhoeven delivers a delirious journey that's a little wild and exaggerated. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 7, 2023

Verhoeven uses blasphemy like a butterfly knife to pierce the hypocritical doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

| Jul 24, 2023

Benedetta is much slacker, shot mostly on loosely handheld digital, and its early Renaissance world is a little perceptibly threadbare...at times it weirdly resembles a lackluster Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

| Nov 28, 2022

The trio of actresses at the film's core (Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, and Daphne Patakia) all deliver riveting performances, attuned to the sacrifice that comes with being a woman in the Catholic church.

| Nov 2, 2022

It questions, with erotic depth and the most religious iconography, the pleasure of the flesh as blasphemy and the power exercised by the church to repress female sexuality; but in the process it becomes hopelessly trivial. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 1, 2022

The film relishes that sort of impious thinking in a colourful, mordant tale.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 24, 2022

Benedetta's story is translated through a typically provocative lens into an exploration of piety and perversion, of holiness and horniness, of sapphic love and suffering.

| Aug 5, 2022

Its rebellious [nature] is timely and the world it represents is just as contemporary as it is historical... [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 27, 2022

For anyone that's ever wondered how a religious biopic and nunsploitation might combine, this is the answer you've been praying for.

| Jun 25, 2022

The corruption and hypocrisy of the church are pretty easy targets. Still, it's key that how Verhoeven chooses to deliver his barbs is what distinguishes "Benedetta," as he opts to use humor, with genuine laugh-out-loud comedy, as the film's secret weapon

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 15, 2022

No acting force, not even Rampling's, wasted here, compensates for the Starship Troopers (1997) director's gimmicky and crude sexual profanity theme park ride set in the Renaissance. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 7, 2022

Controversial, with bawdy scenes and some of the best performers in French cinema. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 7, 2022

A welcome return to form from a unique and flamboyant filmmaker we’ve missed for far too long, and his fans – along with anybody with a taste for provocative cinema – should consider it a must-see.

| May 19, 2022

Infantile, lazy, and libidinous... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 13, 2022

Many formal and hormonal wonders…unite sexuality and power. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 85/100 | May 12, 2022

Benedetta is a provocative, profane and exhilarating watch. Verhoeven doesnt always nail the tonal shifts of the narrative, but the directors vision is as sharp as it is seductive and funny.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2022

Benedetta is not Verhoeven’s best work, but it is perhaps among the best in representing his central concerns as a filmmaker. Its exploitation is balanced with a reframing of religious experience as fundamentally sexual.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 18, 2022

Quite a trick.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 18, 2022